1865 is a common year starting on Sunday.

Events

• January 31 - American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
• February - The only known month in History without a Full moon.
• February 17 - American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.
• February 22 - Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery.
• March 3 - The U.S. Congress authorizes formation of the Freedmen's Bureau.
• March 13 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America reluctantly agrees to the use of African American troops.
• March 18 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
• March 19 - American Civil War: The Battle of Bentonville begins. By the end of the battle on the 21st the Confederate forces had retreated from Greenville, North Carolina.
• March 25 - The "Claywater Meteorite" explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg were recovered.
• March 25 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Steadman from the Union.
• March 29 - American Civil War: Battle of Appomattox Court House begins .
• April 1 - American Civil War: Battle of Five Forks - In Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
• April 2 - American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia which is taken the next day.
• April 6 - German Chemicals producer, Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik(BASF) founded in Mannheim.
• April 9 - American Civil War: General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.
• April 14 - US President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
• April 21 - German Chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.
• April 26
  • Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth and cavalryman Boston Corbett shoots the assassin dead.
  • American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina.
• April 27 - The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.
• May 1 - Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay is formally signed - War of the Triple Alliance has already begun.
• May 10 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by Union troops near Irwinville, Georgia .
• May 13 - American Civil War: Battle of Palmito Ranch - In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the civil war ends with a Union victory.
• May 23 - Parade down Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, DC to celebrate the ending of the American Civil War.
• May 25 - Mobile magazine explosion: 300 are killed in Mobile, Alabama when an ordnance depot explodes.
• June 2 - American Civil War ends - Forces under Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas, becoming the last to do so.
• June 11 - Brazilian navy squadron defeats Paraguayan navy at Riachualo .
• June 23 - American Civil War: At Fort Towson in Oklahoma Territory Confederate General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant rebel army.
• July 2 - Salvation Army founded in Whitechapel, London
• July 5
  • William Booth founds the Christian Mission (later renamed to the Salvation Army).
  • US Secret Service founded.
• July 21 - In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.
• July 27 - Welsh settlers arrive in Argentina at Chubut Valley.
• December 10 - Leopold II becomes King of Belgium.
• December 18 - Thirteenth Constitutional amendment declared ratified by three-fourths of the States of the United States. It forever abolished slavery.
• December 24 - Several US Civil War Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan.

Undated

• Gregor Mendel formulates his theories of Mendelian inheritance- they are mainly ignored for years.
• A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon destroys about one million acres (4,000 km²) of timber.
• Last volume of Annals of Joseon Dynasty published.

Births

• January 5 - Julio Garavito Armero, Colombian astronomer (d. 1920)
• January 28 - Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, President of Finland (d. 1952)
• February 12 - Kazimierz Tetmajer, full name Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Polish poet and writer (d. 1940)
• February 19 - Sven Hedin, scientist and explorer (d. 1952)
• March 15 - Edith Maude Eaton, writer (d. 1914)
• March 19 - William Morton Wheeler, American entomologist and ethologist (d. 1937)
• April 9 - Erich Ludendorff, German general in World War (d. 1937)
• May 25 - Pieter Zeeman, Nobel Prize winner (d. 1943)
• May 26 - Robert W. Chambers, artist (d. 1933)
• June 2 - George Lohmann, Surrey bowler (d. 1901)
• June 3 - King George V of the United Kingdom (d. 1936)
• June 9 - Albéric Magnard, composer (d. 1914)
• July 23 - Max Heindel (born Carl Louis von Grasshoff in Denmark); Christian occultist, astrologer and mystic (d. 1919)
• August 2 - Irving Babbitt, American literary critic (d. 1933)
• August 24 - King Ferdinand of Romania (d. 1927)
• August 27 - James Henry Breasted, Egyptologist (d. 1935)
• October 1 - Paul Dukas, French composer (d. 1935)
• October 17 - James Rudolph Garfield, U.S. politician (d. 1950)
• October 26 - Benjamin Guggenheim, businessman, Titanic victim (d. 1912)
• November 2 - Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States (d. 1923)
• December 8 - Jean Sibelius, composer (d. 1957)

Deaths

• April 1 - John Milton, governor of Florida (b. 1807)
• April 2 - A.P. Hill, Confederate general (b. 1825)
• April 15 - Abraham Lincoln, US President (b. 1809)
• April 26 - John Wilkes Booth, actor and assassin of Abraham Lincoln (b. 1838)
• October 18 - Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of Britain (b. 1784)
• November 12 - Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist, biographer (b. 1810)
• November 28 - William Machin Stairs, Nova Scotia businessman, statesman (b. 1789)
• December 10 - Leopold I of Belgium (b. 1790.
• James Barry, British military surgeon